So how does Pep Guardiola stuff up the Champions League from here?
Given his record, it’s a fair question but right now the tea leaves are looking favourable.
Having his Viking Invader on the rampage is the main reason, of course.
Erling Haaland had hinted at human frailty, going a couple of games without scoring.
But this week he roared back with a vengeance.
So, too, did Kevin de Bruyne, who, like Haaland, received some tough love from Pep.
Not being the frontrunner in the English Premier League (EPL) could also help ease the pressure.
City won’t relinquish their title without a fight and are confident they’ll make it a double over leaders Arsenal at The Etihad next month.
But this year their focus is on the Champions League and the psychological shift could be crucial.
So much so that even if they let their EPL crown slip, it’ll be a blip not a disaster – as long as they conquer Europe.
And Pep has already used the allegations of financial irregularities to good effect by creating a siege mentality.
After their 7-0 marmalising of RB Leipzig, they find themselves in the familiar position of being favourites to do so.
That’s how the bookies see it even though 14-time winners Real Madrid claim to have the deeds to club football’s holy grail.
And there are other dangers lurking in the dark alley of tonight’s quarter-final draw.
Bayern Munich are always a threat while a trio of past legends are bidding for former glories: none other than both Milan teams plus Benfica.
Napoli, with a goal machine of their own in Victor Osimhen, look most capable of a mugging.
And Chelsea might think they have the hex on City after surprising them in the final two years ago.
City have been here before, and Pep has many times. With Barcelona and Bayern too.
But this time, it feels different.
He’s never had the ‘insurance policy’ that Haaland brings.
There are no guarantees but the stats are reassuring, especially in this competition.
In becoming only the third player – after Adriano and Lionel Messi – to score five in a single Champions League game, he took his tournament tally to an astonishing 33 goals in 25 games.
He’s both the fastest and youngest player (at 22 years and 236 days) to reach the 30-goal milestone.
So, City could not have signed anyone better qualified to lift the curse or lay the ghost.
Whichever, something has prevented them as well as fellow nouveau riche, Gulf-owned Johnny-come-latelies, PSG, from landing the trophy they crave.
As Haaland explained: “I’m here to try to help the club develop even more, to try to win the Champions League for the first time.”
It’s also to help Pep winning it for the first time since 2011.
After looking like it was his personal property with peak Barcelona, he has found intriguing ways not to lift Old Big Ears.
From an Icelandic volcano erupting to the ability of Real Madrid to rise from the dead, things have conspired to keep his most prized medals down to a modest pair (2009 and 2011).
Since the latter, he’s experienced a dozen years of frustration, bad luck, a sabbatical, under-performing and over-thinking.
The irony is that Haaland is not Pep’s type of player. Indeed, the Catalan has made his managerial name by not even having a No 9 at all.
Early iterations were Samuel Eto’o and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. On paper, each looked like the perfect ‘last piece of the jigsaw’ to finish off all the fancy moves.
Both were good with their feet and yet neither were comfortable fits into what Alex Ferguson called the passing carousel that Pep had created.
David Villa and Sergio Aguero were probably the strikers that blended best with all those little pass masters around them.
In Aguero’s case it was only after Pep had convinced him that he had to be part of the press as well.
And so we come to Haaland. His 39 goals in 36 games are unanswerable – a club record that stood for almost a century smashed before the middle of March.
It’s pushing 40% of City’s goal total in all competitions.
Last season, De Bruyne was top scorer with 15 goals that were 15.6% of the total.
And yet, with the hulking Norwegian, City have not been quite the smooth-passing machine of recent seasons.
There are even those who claim they’re not as good with him in the side.
And they can point to the Covid-distorted year of 2021, when City scored 113 goals to set new EPL and top-flight records.
But they lost 1-0 to Chelsea in the Champions League final.
That’s the result that still rankles.
Last season, they scored 100 goals without a centre-forward and looked better for it.
Some even said Haaland, who can go 90 minutes with a mere 20 touches, was surplus to requirements in a team of mesmeric dribblers.
Pep’s Barcelona was prevented from a hattrick of titles through unique circumstances.
In 2010 volcanic ash from Iceland grounded flights in Western Europe and Barca had to go by bus to play Inter in Milan.
After a 14 hour, 985km journey, Barca couldn’t break down Jose Mourinho’s defence.
They’d gone by bus to play a team that parked the bus.
Other notable failures were the VAR interventions against Spurs that allowed a controversial Tottenham goal and ruled out a late City ‘winner’ in 2019.
And, of course, Pep’s weird tactics and selection against Lyon the year before.
He played three centre-backs, leaving several forwards on the bench and lost in the quarter-final.
Dare it be said, he’s probably learned those lessons now.
He’s also keeping Haaland hungry – the boy wanted six against Leipzig when taken off – and getting De Bruyne angry with his criticism.
This week he got the best out of both.
And then came the bizarre admission that he was jealous of United when his ‘idol’, Hollywood actress Julia Roberts paid a visit to Old Trafford five years ago.
“She went to see them, not us,” he lamented.
To get the Pretty Woman star to the blue half of Manchester, City, they have to become European champions as a first step.
Even in jest, Pep betrayed the admission that City are not quite Hollywood material just yet.
But they have a potential Oscar winner in Haaland who you sense could make Pep’s dream come true.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.